How to lose 40 lbs?

nadnan91 · June 2020

I’m 5 feet tall and I weigh 160 pounds. I’ve been exercising everyday using my indoor bike, taking walks and some weight lifting but I don’t seem to be losing weight and/or fat. I have noticed however that my muscles are becoming very defined and I feel stronger but again my old pants and dresses do not fit - most of my body fat is concentrated in my hips thighs and butt. Is this just a matter of diet? Should I be restricting myself to 1500 calories a day to lose 1-2 lbs a week? Should I not eat carbs? Any advice tips tricks - and success stories?

janejellyroll · June 2020

You need a calorie deficit to lose weight. Exercise can be part of that, but many people find that they need to deliberately restrict their calorie intake in order to reach a deficit. It doesn't necessarily have to be 1,500 - your deficit will need to be determined based on your activity level and current weight. If you enter your goals and stats into MFP, it will generate a calorie goal for you based on what they estimate will create a deficit.

You can eat carbohydrates while you're in a deficit - it's purely personal choice if you want to restrict them or not (some people find it is easier to meet their calorie goal when they restrict carbohydrates, while other people lose weight while still including them in their diet).

I lost about 40 pounds through a calorie deficit while getting about 60% of my calories from carbohydrates. I started around your weight -- about 155 pounds.

HeidiCooksSupper · June 2020

The only way to lose weight is by consuming fewer calories than you expend. The way to health is through exercise combined with a healthy diet. You are eating enough to exercise as you do and to maintain a weight of 160 pounds. The only way to lose weight is to eat less.

You cannot lose 40 pounds (a full quarter of your present weight) in a hurry. This will take time. Since you will want to stay at the lower weight, you will need to develop a habit of not eating enough to go back to 160 pounds. Work your way into this by, as folks said above, entering your statistics into a calculator like the one on MFP and figure out how fast you can maintain losing weight. This will tell you how many calories you should consume per day to lose between .5 and 2 pounds per week.

Note, it will be increasingly difficult to maintain a rate of 2 pounds per week as you get closer to your healthy weight. It's better to do this slowly in a way you will maintain than a quick start that you can't keep up.

I am a five-by-five, pushing-70 y.o, couch potato. I am losing weight at 1525 calories/day. My number won't be right for you. Why should it? You are not a five-by-five, senior, couch potato.

lgfrie · June 2020

Go to the MFP Goals tool. Enter your age, gender, height, weight, etc., and tell it you want to lose 1 pound per week. It will give you a calorie target. Eat that calorie target every day and don't take off days, cheat meals, or binge, just hit that number every day. Do your exercise within reason and eat back most of those calories, so if you do 200 calories worth of working out, eat back 100-200 of them. 40 weeks from now, you will be at or close to your goal, *IF* you regularly succeed in not going over the calorie target and don't take cheat meals/days. Going over the calorie target or, especially, taking off days and binging, will slow down your weight loss considerably or even stop or reverse it. Learn to eat within your calorie limit every day.

That's all you have to do. There are no tricks. Weight loss is an algebra problem, noting more or less.

Carbs make no difference to weight loss. Going low carb can lead to temporary draining of water, which does show up on the scale as a few extra pounds of weight loss. That is why people get so excited about low-carb when they first start. Within a week or two, that water-carb rebalancing has been completed and at that point their weight loss rate is exactly the same as if they ate all carbs all the time. And as soon as people stop doing low-carb, the water retention comes right back. So there is no point in it, from a weight loss perspective. If you don't like carbs, don't eat carbs. If you like them, eat them. It is far more important to make sure you're getting foods you enjoy than to fuss with macros. The more you like the foods you eat on your diet, the more likely you are to stick with it.

cwolfman13 · June 2020

nadnan91 wrote: »

I’m 5 feet tall and I weigh 160 pounds. I’ve been exercising everyday using my indoor bike, taking walks and some weight lifting but I don’t seem to be losing weight and/or fat. I have noticed however that my muscles are becoming very defined and I feel stronger but again my old pants and dresses do not fit - most of my body fat is concentrated in my hips thighs and butt. Is this just a matter of diet? Should I be restricting myself to 1500 calories a day to lose 1-2 lbs a week? Should I not eat carbs? Any advice tips tricks - and success stories?

Exercise can be relevant or completely irrelevant to weight loss or weight management in general. Regular exercise doesn't just default to losing weight...if it did, people who exercise for the purpose of their health and fitness would ultimately wither away and die. You can lose weight, maintain weight, and gain weight with regular exercise depending on what your ratio to calories in to calories out is. Weight management ultimately comes down to calories...if you exercise and consume a balance of calories, you will maintain weight...if you exercise and consume fewer calories than your body needs, you will lose weight...if you exercise and consume more calories than your body needs, you will gain weight.

missysippy930 · June 2020

To lose weight eat less calories than your body burns. Calorie deficit. Exercise may help you be in a calorie deficit, but isn’t necessary for weight loss.

How to lose 40 lbs?

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